“When is the Chicago History Museum Free in 2020?” by S.M. O’Connor

The Chicago Historical Society’s Chicago History Museum (C.H.M.) is free for Illinois residents every Tuesday (excluding the 12^th of May and Tuesdays in July and August) from 2:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. In addition, it is free for Illinois residents on Mondays and Wednesdays in January from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Further, it is free for Illinois residents on Commemorative Days: Martin Luther King, Junior Day (Monday, January 20, A.D. 2020): Presidents’ Day (Monday, February 17, A.D. 2020); Wednesday, March 4, A.D. 2020; and Independence Day (Saturday, July 4, A.D. 2020). Children who reside in Illinois always enjoy free admission.

Normally, General Admission is $19 for adults, $17 for senior citizens (ages sixty-five-and-over) and college students (ages nineteen-through-twenty-two). In one place on the C.H.M. Website, it states children (eighteen-and-under) are free if they are Illinois residents, and in another place it says children under eighteen are free if they reside in Illinois. Wintrust sponsors Free Museum Admission for children under eighteen. Residents of Chicago receive a $2 discount. Children from outside Illinois also enjoy free admission if they are twelve-and-under.

Other Offers

Admission is free for members of the C.H.M., the DuSable Museum, the National Museum of Mexican Art, and The National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts & Culture. With valid identification, admission is free for all active-duty U.S. Armed Services personnel and veterans, all active-duty members of the Chicago Police Department (C.P.D.) and Chicago Fire Department (C.F.D.), and Illinois teachers. Admission is also free for pre-registered school field trips, Park Voyagers, and Kids Museum Passport Holders. Park Voyagers and Kids Museum Passport Holders must show their passes.

Museums for All

The C.H.M. offers discounted admission of $3 to individuals and families who present an Electronic Benefits Transfer (E.B.T.) card and a valid photo identification card. A maximum of four adults is allowed per E.B.T. card.

Blue Star Museums

The C.H.M. is a Blue Star Museum and is proud to offer free admission to active-duty members of the military, including the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Marine Corps, Reservists, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the National Guard, with up to five family members. This program runs from Memorial Day through Labor Day. This program is thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts and Blue Star Families.

W.I.C.

The C.H.M. offers a discounted admission of $3 with verification of participation in W.I.C.

The Museum Hours are normally 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Sundays; 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays; and from 9:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Tuesdays. It will be closed on Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, November 26, A.D. 2020); Christmas Day (Friday, December 25, A.D. 2020); and New Year’s Day (Friday, January 1, A.D. 2021). There will be short hours on the days before those holidays. The C.H.M. will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, November 25, A.D. 2020; Thursday, December 24, A.D. 2020; and Thursday, December 31, A.D. 2020. The Research Center is open from 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Saturdays. It is closed on Sundays and Mondays. The Café is open from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Sundays and from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays.

Public parking is located one block north of the C.H.M. at the intersection of Clark Street and LaSalle Street. Enter at Stockton Drive. Parking is $10 with C.H.M. validation. Visa, MasterCard, and Discover cards are accepted. There specially designated parking spots for people with mobility devices.

The C.H.M. is located at the southwest corner of the Chicago Park District’s Lincoln Park. It sits in the Old Town neighborhood within the Lincoln Park Community Area (Community Area #7) on the North Side of Chicago. The address is 1601 North Clark Street, Chicago, Illinois 60614. The phone number is (312) 642-4600.

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The Field Museum of Natural History in March, 2018

The Field Museum of Natural History’s entrance pavilions are at opposite ends of Stanley Field Hall, which has a north-south axis. The two porticos (porches) are each reached by two successive flights of stairs.

Both porticos of The Field Museum of Natural History are flanked by two small porches, which each have two caryatids (columns in the shape of maidens). On the facade, the wings are adorned with a colonnade of attached fluted Ionic columns. The building’s fluted Ionic columns have volutes (spiral-scroll-shaped crowns).

Each portico of The Field Museum is tetrastyle in antis with double-ranked fluted Ionic columns capped by volutes. An entablature crowned by a pediment rests atop the columns. The continuous frieze in each case is relatively plain. The wave-themed acroteria that crown the pediments are borrowed from the Palace of a Fine Arts, which housed The Field Museum until 1920 and now houses the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Field Museum of Natural History isn’t “just” a museum. Visitors can watch scientists at work through windows at the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice DNA Discovery Center’s Pritzker Laboratory.

Mrs. Charles (Laura) Schweppe, a daughter and co-heiress of John Graves Shedd, the former partner of Marshall Field I who succeeded him as president of Marshall Field & Company, and who, under the guidance of Stanley Field founded the Shedd Aquarium, donated an exhibit of 100 bronze sculptures by Malvina Hoffman to The Field Museum. They represent every race, nation, and tribe in the human family (more or less). On January 9, 1933, the first group, Unity of Man, went on display.

In addition to the four figures Henry Hering (1874-1949) made for the corners of Stanley Field Hall, he also made the twelve plaster round lion head shield escutcheons that line it. These are replicas of the marble round lion head shield escutcheon he made for the pediment of the facade of The Field Museum of Natural History.

Christmas at Chicago’s Union Station

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a POLAR EXPRESS display in the Great Hall of Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a closeup of the THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is the headlamp of THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Union Station Company rail car loaded with super-size gifts is part of THE POLAR EXPRESS mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Union Station in downtown Chicago has emblems of Amtrak, Metra, and historic railroad companies whose routes they now operate like Burlington.

Cinemas sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) Helped Design

This is the Pickwick Theatre Building, an Art Deco movie palace and office building erected in downtown Park Ridge, Illinois in 1928.

The architects were Roscoe Harold Zook and William F. McCaughey. Sculptor Alfonso Iannelli, who also worked on the Adler Planetarium, contributed to this building.

In recent years, the Vlahakis family, who’ve owned the building for 50 years, have been able to turn the building into a multiplex by adding smaller theaters around the original auditorium. The latest one, with a screen four times the size of the one in the auditorium, will open in time to screen INFINITY WARS in May, if all goes well.

The Catlow Movie Theater is a cinema that opened in downtown Barrington, Illinois in 1927. The Tudor Revival style of architecture is not confined to the facade of the cinema. As with the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge, Illinois, sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) played a role in the design and decoration of The Catlow Movie Theater.